Textbooks are reassuring; the absence of them, unsettling – it's high time
they made a welcome return to our classrooms, says Boarding School Beak

Indeed, latest Government-backed research by Cambridge Assessment, reveals only 10 per cent of maths teachers now use a textbook. Nick Gibb, Schools Minister, is absolutely right to call for their rapid reintroduction. This “anti-textbook ethos” he identifies is a sorry state of affairs – for all sorts of reasons.

Firstly, textbooks act as a support to pupils in the full range of school subjects. They provide reference points easily to hand: not only in subjects heavily dependent on data – like chemistry, maths or languages (who could imagine a French or Spanish lesson without a grammar book?) –but also in the humanities, like English and history (and who could imagine a geography lesson without all those maps and pictures?).

They mean a student is never lost when doing homework on their own. They are resources to be turned to, when ideas and inspiration are lacking.

Obviously, the Internet can and does provide similar resources; the trouble is, this tends to be much less group focused. Textbooks are particularly suited to class discussion and learning. It may sound like a cliché –“Now let’s all turn to Page 32…” – but they provide communal structures and references that allow teachers to know that all pupils are following the syllabus.

Not only that, they allow pupils to underline and annotate any difficult facts, theories and passages.

It always looks strange when a boy or girl arrives at a class without a textbook under their arm. What’s more, from my experience, pupils themselves totally accept the need for them.

Whenever I’ve tried to cut down on book costs for the benefit of parents, by giving pupils worksheets and photocopies instead, my pupils tend to look and feel short-changed – as if being robbed of their natural rights: “Aren't we having a set book this term, Sir?”

Textbooks, in short, are reassuring; the absence of them, unsettling.

The other crucial point about textbooks is that, well-thumbed, well-worn, battered, tried and tested, they inevitably become old friends: rather like a comforting old jumper. Come on now, be honest: how many of your old textbooks do you still keep stashed away somewhere at home?

I certainly still have plenty of mine: Latin primers, history books, geography atlases – and one of my most prized possessions, a very old copy of WHF Whitmarsh’s wonderful “First French Book”. I simply love it – if only for its quaint illustrations.

All these books are bulky, very much the worse for wear and, as objects, absolutely valueless; but I would not be parted with them for the world. Every time my “other half” threatens to throw them out, I respond with horror and alarm.

I even confess to thumbing through these old textbooks, from time to time. They’re like long-lost companions. The pictures in them – many, I’m sad to say, defaced with false facial hair and graffiti – bring back happy memories from my own dim and distant school days.

Why should future generations be robbed of such treasures?

It’s high-time textbooks made a welcome return to our classrooms. Teaching and learning simply isn’t the same without them.

The author teaches English at a top independent boarding school @BoardingBeak